A total of 742,442 cases have been reported in the country.

NEW YORK, April 19 -- The number of COVID-19 deaths in the United States topped 40,000 by 3:00 p.m. local time Sunday (1900 GMT), reaching 40,585, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

A total of 742,442 cases have been reported in the country, according to the CSSE.

A loading platform leading into a refrigerated trailer serving as a makeshift morgue is seen outside a hospital amid the COVID-19 pandemic in New York, the United States, on April 16, 2020.(Photo by Michael Nagle/Xinhua)

The state of New York suffered the most deaths at 18,921 among 242,570 cases, with 14,451 deaths from New York City. In other hardest-hit states, New Jersey reported 4,364 fatalities, Michigan reported 2,308 deaths and Massachusetts recorded 1,560 deaths, the data showed.